Yes. My past two hikes have, indeed, been epic adventures... According to Dictionary.com... "Epic: noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style." (For an extra giggle from UrbanDictionary.com, take a peek at their interpretation of *epic* here.) How dare I attempt to live up to such a description? Well, how dare I not? I mean who doesn't want to be the hero of an epic blog post when called to do so? I sure do! Thus, on to the adventurous tales...
A week ago, Tuesday, it was a glorious, Vermont, summer day. And what could make a glorious, Vermont, summer day even better? Hiking with your new dog! Our family has adopted the most gentle, sweetheart of a dog. I introduce to you, the one and only, Hope! We don't know much about her past, but she's a rescue from Passion-4-Paws.org, and we couldn't be happier with our pooch. We're guessing she's 2-3 years old, looks like a mini yellow lab (with who knows what else mixed in) and has the cutest crooked smile with a snaggle tooth to boot. She has the most gentle nature, and is a 100% people lover. So much so, that I feel I must train her to be a therapy dog so she can join me on my therapeutic music adventures and provide a little extra lift to those in need. I was a little nervous to take her off leash on the trail at first, but sweet Hope wouldn't go more than 10-20 feet ahead without bounding back to me for an ear-rub. Seriously. 20 feet, ear rub. 20 feet, ear rub. That was until she saw another human on the trail, upon which she couldn't help herself and gently ran up to them for an ear rub. Hope and I gained a lot of experience with this routine that day because we hiked the trail twice in row. Ummm, Mama unknowingly dropped the leash at the top of the mountain. But Hope didn't mind at all, and to tell you the truth, neither did I.
There might not have been any dramatic music or scandalous love affairs, but with Hope and the moonlight as our hero/ines, this is what epic looks like in my life these days, and boy does it feel good. I hear our theme song to the movie re-make of this tale as a fiddle, banjo and guitar with some rich vocal harmonies, vs. an orchestral score with a tense melody, but hey, a story worthy and epic nonetheless!